Steak Houses

Porterhouse. Rib Eye. Filet Mignon. Are you hungry yet? From city-style hot spots to down-home dining rooms, here are eleven of the Valley’s best places to find the beef

By: Lynn Hazlewood

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Culinary crazes come and go. But the steakhouse endures — and even thrives — when times are tough and we crave comfort food. Here in the Hudson Valley, we haven’t seen many classic steakhouses of the Smith & Wollensky type — those testosterone temples where men in suits wash down huge slabs of meat with big glasses of Cabernet. Ours are generally more family-friendly places, and even the newer ones that have opted for the clubby, leathery look are welcoming to women and kids. But that doesn’t mean the steaks aren’t just as juicy — even if they’re the smaller cuts that savvy restaurateurs are offering for those who have taken heart-health warnings to, um, heart.

Home-cooked steaks never quite measure up, partly because domestic stoves don’t achieve the super-high heat necessary to char them well, but also because most of the best beef (Prime and Choice) is sold to restaurants in the first place. Anyway, with supermarket prices the way they are these days, many of the steakhouses listed here are quite a bargain — especially those that throw in a couple of sides. So forget about dining on dainty, high-concept morsels that have you wondering “Where’s dinner?” — and put a little sizzle in your day.